VINAYAOwnership and Administration of
Monasteries

Ajahn
Brahmavamso

Vinaya is the name for the body of monastic rules and
traditions that are binding on every Buddhist monk and nun.
The Vinaya was established by the Buddha himself and is now
preserved in written form, both in the ancient Indian
languages and in English translation.

With so many new people having come into the Society in
the last few years, many of our members and friends know very
little about the rules of discipline of the monastic
community. It is important for the lay community to have an
understanding of these rules to ensure that we do not behave
in any way which is offensive to the Sangha nor which could
create difficulty for them. We have therefore decided to
reprint a series of articles in this and forthcoming
newsletters, which were written by Ajahn Brahm a number of
years ago.

Ownership and Administration
of Monasteries:

In the time of the Buddha, when a lay Buddhist offered
lands of buildings, or money for such things, to establish a
monastery, they would dedicate it to The Sangha of the
Four Quarters Present and Yet to Come. The
Sangha of the four quarters present and yet to come means ALL
properly ordained monks and nuns. This would include all
legitimate Buddhist monks and nuns, of all nationalities and
sects. Today it would probably include most Chinese Mahayana
monks and nuns (bhiksus and bhiksunis) but it would exclude
some Tibetan lamas and most Zen roshis, the married ones at
least! Thus the owners of the monastery are the worldwide and
"timewide" community of monks and nuns.

The administrators of the monastery were those monks or
nuns who lived there. They would meet regularly to make any
decisions concerning their monastery and all such decisions
had to be unanimous. But there are many rules of Vinaya which
restrict what the resident monastics may do, in order to
safeguard the monastery from corrupt monks. For example, they
can't decide to give Sangha property away (unless it is
trifling), nor to divide up the goods among themselves, (then
disrobing, selling up, and moving to Majorca!). The community
at a monastery is bound to preserve and maintain in good
order all Sangha property, holding it in trust for the
monastics now and in the future.

In large monasteries, and some had thousands of monks and
nuns, the community would delegate some of its
responsibilities to competent monks and nuns. Thus there
would be a monk in charge of allocating lodgings, and one in
charge of building and maintenance. Ven. Maha Moggalana, one
of the Buddha's two chief monk disciples, was perhaps the
most effective of the building monks. Once the Buddha
commissioned him, with the assistance of 500 monks, to build
the grandiose dwelling called the "Migaramatu
Pasada" at Savatthi, with funds donated by the foremost
female lay disciple Visakha. This monastic dwelling had two
stories, each with 500 rooms pinnacled with gold! Because of
Ven. Maha Moggalana's psychic powers (they didn't have cranes
and bulldozers then) it took only 9 months to complete. It
makes our efforts at Bodhinyana look puny.

In conclusion, in the time of the Buddha, the resident
monastic community ran their monastery in every respect,
maintaining it in good order for the benefit of all monks and
nuns, now and in the future. And monastics did get involved
in the building, although only now and again. The famous
monasteries in ancient India, such as the Jeta Grove outside
of Savatthi where the Buddha spent 19 rains retreats, were
owned by the Sangha and run by the monks -- there was no
Buddhist Society of Savatthi! Then there was no need.